Medieval II: Total War

In the game Medieval II: Total War, you must lead 1 of 17 kingdoms to total domination using trade, religion, espionage, alliances, and military might to achieve this glorious victory. You start out with a couple of factions first, but you must destroy other factions to unlock them. Each faction has its strengths and weaknesses and units from splendidly armored French Knights to Spanish Conquistadors. The game commences in turns and each turn is 2 years. The game spans from 1080 to 1530 so there's 250 so turns.

In the beginning you start out with a number provinces with some as a city or castle. You don't have to leave them like so, you can convert it to the other. There is only a source of money, no food and building supplies like other strategy games. You can adjust a tax rate in a city, but not castle. Cities are for producing more money not military and have higher populations. Castles produce military units, less economy, and have less population. You must build necessary buildings in order to recruit special things or gain bonuses like barracks are for recruiting infantry units and farms give a better food production letting cities survive longer in a siege. You will also receive missions to do from the Pope or the Council of Nobles. You don't have to do any of the missions, but if you deny the Pope he won't favor your faction and inquisitors will sweep through your lands and trial your generals and you may lose them if you don't have enough piety. One very cool thing is that when you upgrade a soldiers armor it actually shows a different image on the battlefield than its original stage. Differentiation of soldiers is also in the game.

There are agents in the game like diplomats, spies, assassins, and priests/imams. Diplomats are made to announce alliances or trade rights, spies give information on armies and settlements, assassins kill characters like generals, and priests/imams spread their countries faith throughout lands and denounce heretics. Only the Papal States have inquisitors.

When an army attacks another army or settlement a battle commences. At the start of the battle you deploy your troops and then the fight begins with your army clashing with another. The battles look spectacular with cavalry slicing through enemy lines, sounds of swooshing arrows, and the motion capture attacks and differentiation of soldiers. Also music is constantly playing which sounds great.

The bad is that the game takes good system requirements to be stable and even better to run smoothly. Naval battles you still cannot fight in the game. You must auto resolve, but you can't help or anything.

Medieval II: Total War is an excellent game if you're a strategy game fan, but make sure you have a good computer to run it. Check out the gameplay videos for guides.